>> Cane is now advising almond growers on how to have >> "a more balanced portfolio of pollinators" randy oliver wrote: > Not likely, with the total absence of other flowering plants in > and around the almond orchard. Bill Truesdell wrote: > Even worse than that. Check the economics to have the > numbers needed to do the job and how to get those numbers > from native pollinators. > It all gets down to two simple facts that are omitted from any NP > information. Numbers and transportable. Honeybees can supply > both and the NP neither for large scale agriculture Randy & Bill, when the NP people talk to reporters, they make it sound like wild native bees could deliver a comparable degree of pollination if farmers supplied them with "flowering hedgerows, fallow land and crop diversification." Example: In a July 15 Seattle Times newspaper article, http://tinyurl.com/ys3fbw Scott Black, executive director of the Xerces Society told the reporter: "hundreds of species of native bees are available for crop pollination if only their habitat were properly managed. That means flowering hedgerows, fallow land, crop diversification." "Using a variety of bees for pollination means less threat to the food supply from a single mite, parasite or disease. "We need to diversify our portfolio of pollinators," Black says. Paul Cherubini El Dorado, Calif. ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ******************************************************